The UN Loss and Damage Fund and island territories
In 2022, wealthy industrialized nations finally agreed to create a UN fund that will address loss and damage from climate change impacts. The COP27 agreement was the culmination of three decades of pressure from small island states and other vulnerable countries, who faced significant resistance from wealthy, industrialized nations. The agreement was a historic win for climate justice, and it will hopefully provide much-needed support to communities that are already bearing the brunt of climate change.
However, the Loss and Damage Fund will not provide funding to the several million people still living under colonial rule. According to the fund agreement and governing instrument, it will assist “developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change” (emphasis added). While the negotiating parties have not precisely defined “developing countries,” the term only includes sovereign states that are party to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This designation excludes the colonial territories of developed countries, mirroring their exclusion from the Adaptation Fund. While some advocates call for mechanisms that would allow communities to directly access Fund support, there has been no suggestion that this would expand the scope of the Fund.
The UN recognizes 17 colonized territories, which the organization refers to as “non-self-governing territories.” All of them are small islands ruled by overseas governments, with the exception of Western Sahara, the majority of which is held by Morocco. However, the UN’s list is narrowly defined—it excludes colonial territories that exercise some level of autonomy or self-governance. For example, the list does not include Puerto Rico, the occupied territories of Palestine, or the Dutch island territories of Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten. Yet, these territories still experience colonial rule: their residents have no meaningful representation in the governments that control vital aspects of their territories. The UN list also does not include over a dozen island territories that participate in national elections, such as the French Overseas Territories and the Dutch Caribbean islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba. Though these territories were formally decolonized, they continue to experience features of colonial rule.
Island territories face climate change devastation
Island territories, like small island states, are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Small islands face rising sea levels, increased flooding, more powerful and frequent storms, coastal erosion, and saline intrusion into freshwater and agricultural land, among other climate change impacts. Despite being responsible for only a small fraction of greenhouse gas emissions, island territories remain represented in climate negotiations by governments that substantially contribute to climate change.
In theory, territories should receive support from their administering governments—not the Loss and Damage Fund. The UNFCCC assumes that wealthy industrialized countries will, on their own accord, take steps to assist their populations with adapting to climate change and addressing loss and damage from climate change impacts. Indeed, colonial territories do sometimes receive support from their national governments. For example, the US government provided billions of dollars to help Puerto Rico rebuild after the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017. However, this aid came with harsher conditions and was substantially less than the aid sent to US states.
In practice, colonial territories are unlikely to receive sufficient support to address climate change impacts. These territories have long suffered exploitation, discrimination, and marginalization at the hands of their administering governments. Top-down decision-making leads administering governments to neglect the needs of island territories and impose ineffective adaptation measures on them. As an illustration of this inequality, the United States fails to collect data that is crucial for addressing climate change impacts in its territories, and the experience of American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands indeed suggests that they are less prepared for climate change than their sovereign counterparts. As legal scholars note, “US territories’ constrained and disparate ability to adapt to the harms of climate change have caused a type of adaptation apartheid.” Similarly, the United Kingdom has failed to provide sufficient climate-related support to its territories.
Because colonial powers are not democratically accountable to their territories, they do not have the political incentives that typically encourage a government to support its population. This is particularly true for remote, low-population islands that can be easily ignored by overseas governments. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the US government was fiercely criticized for its lack of response to the disaster. This criticism may have made national headlines because three million people live in Puerto Rico, and another five million Puerto Ricans live on the US mainland. In contrast, the national media paid little attention to Super Typhoon Yutu’s devastating impact on the Northern Mariana Islands, a sparsely populated US territory in the Pacific.
Climate change impacts, if left unaddressed, pose a significant threat to the rights of colonized peoples. Already denied the right to self-determination, residents of colonial territories will be left to cope with rising seas and dangerous weather that will implicate a panoply of human rights, ranging from the right to water, food, and housing to culture, family life, religion, and more. In the face of these rights violations and the continuing failures of the international treaty-making system, alternative legal mechanisms, such as litigation and domestic policymaking, are becoming increasingly vital.
Alternative paths to climate justice for island colonies
Indeed, some colonized peoples have already turned to the courts. Residents of Bonaire recently sued the Dutch government for violating their human rights by failing to protect the island from climate change impacts. Similarly, Puerto Rico recently filed a lawsuit against fossil fuel companies over their role in causing climate change. This case follows lawsuits brought by Puerto Rican cities demanding compensation for damages caused by Hurricane Maria.
Island territories may also be able to secure funds through advocacy and legislation. The US state of Vermont recently passed a “climate superfund” law that requires fossil fuel companies to compensate the state for damages caused by climate change impacts. Though climate superfund laws will likely face “vigorous legal challenges,” some island territories might be able to pass similar legislation and join what is expected to be a “wave of likely climate change cost recovery laws.” Alternatively, territorial governments and residents may be able to pressure national governments to provide funding through advocacy, lobbying, or para-diplomacy.
Highlighting the gap in climate finance that falls squarely on the shoulders of colonized peoples takes on added importance as the Loss and Damage Fund begins to be operationalized. While the aforementioned alternative approaches are far from perfect, they remind climate justice advocates that international funding efforts are not the only means of redress. Unrepresented and forgotten in climate negotiations, colonized peoples on the frontlines of climate change must be at the forefront of climate justice work.